Sinister Wizardry by Eva Chase

Author:Eva Chase [Chase, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ink Spark Press
Published: 2019-07-31T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Rory

The cry rang out loud enough that it pierced my closed window and reached my ears through the hum of the air conditioning system. I jumped up from my bed where I’d been flipping through a magical text from the library and leaned close to the glass. From that angle, I couldn’t make out the cause of the disturbance. A few students on the ground nearby had turned to look at something out of my view—something to the east. Where the clubhouse was being built.

My heart lurched. The spells I’d laid down hadn’t given me any warning, but I knew better than to count on them to work perfectly. I dashed out the door and down the stairs, wishing for the thousandth time that the school administration had invested in elevators.

The second I came around the building, I knew my fears had been right. Several students were gathering around the construction area where the framework had just started to go up. I spotted Benjamin and a couple of his friends among them, his shoulders tight as he gestured toward the site with jerky motions. I hesitated and then let myself drift over for a closer look.

Lots of people had heard that cry. I wasn’t the only one who’d come by to see what the fuss was. My presence wouldn’t be too conspicuous.

As I approached, my spirits sank even lower. The boards that had gone up over the last few days lay splintered and ragged across the ground. A large stone, practically a boulder, lay in their midst, as if it had caused all that damage smashing through from who knew where.

That wasn’t how it had happened at all, of course. Someone had destroyed the frame purposefully like magic, leaving that boulder to give the Naries a plausible if unexpected explanation.

Beneath the scattered boards, the concrete foundation was split with cracks, some as wide as my thumb. I winced inwardly at the sight of them. Shit. That whole slab would probably have to be dug up and laid all over again. Were the Naries supposed to believe the randomly falling rock had smashed the cement hard enough to cause all that damage too? A few damp spots gleamed on the cement in the mid-morning light—maybe they were supposed to think a sudden swelling of groundwater had contributed?

It didn’t really matter what they believed. Either way, so much of the progress they’d made on the building was ruined.

One of the girls from the architecture program was sputtering angrily, and the other boy offered her a hug, looking like he needed one too. Benjamin picked his way around the site, shaking his head, his expression stormy. From where I stood several feet away, I murmured a few words to test the wards I’d put up. They didn’t respond to my magic at all. Whoever had done this had picked them apart first, so carefully the spells hadn’t triggered.

A couple of the other Naries who’d been helping the architecture students had joined the onlookers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.